Difference Between Feelings and Emotions

Human beings are naturally emotive creatures. We often talk about how we are feeling. Over the course of our lifetimes we will experience millions of different sensations. Even over the course of a day we will not be untouched by feelings and emotions. Often, these two terms are used interchangeably, but there are differences between feelings and emotions that, if known, can help us to understand what’s going on inside a little better.

Definition of Feeling and Emotion
Feeling – has upwards of twenty different meanings, depending on which dictionary you consult. For our purposes, feeling can either refer to something experience as a result of outside stimuli reacting with one of your five senses or someone’s sensibilities, attitude, or emotional perception.
Emotion ‘“ is technically a state of consciousness in which various internal sensations are experienced. Emotion can be produced by a thought, memory, or external motivator and can often change our physical state.
Because of this, you could say that the biggest difference between feelings and emotions is that feelings have to be triggered by an external motivating factor whereas emotions can be completely internalized.

Examples of Feelings and Emotions
Feeling ‘“
can come from the outside world reacting with any of our five senses: warmth, cold, hot, dry, dusty, drenched
can come from a physical sensation ‘“ hungry, thirsty, hurt, ticklish, itchy, tingly
can come from the result of an emotion ‘“ sad, happy, excited, nervous, disgusted, scared, overjoyed
Emotion ‘“ can be categorized by degree. For example, disgust can be classed as a lesser degree of hatred. However, several emotional theories state that there are five emotions that are similar to all cultures: love, hate, joy, sorrow, and fear.

Experiencing Feelings and Emotions
Feelings ‘“ are thought to be experienced for short periods of time. If you touch a stove it feels hot and you quickly remove your hand. Within minutes you are no longer feeling hot. If someone jumps out at you from around a corner you will feel startled, but that will soon pass. Feelings of excitement will subside after the awaited event is done.
Emotions ‘“ are often said to be long-term states. If you are in love, that emotion will usually last years. Sorrow too, takes a long time to go away. Because emotions are internal you have to change your mind set to change your emotion and this process takes time.

Summary:
1.Emotions and feelings are both sensations experienced by humans.
2.Feelings are triggered by external stimuli whereas emotions come from your mind, and possibly, soul.
3.Feelings can include physical sensations as well as mental states, but emotions always come from your mind.
4.Feelings are often temporary and subside once the stimulus is no longer present, whereas emotions will stay with you for years because they are seated in your mind.

We are a Motivational Research & Development firm dedicated to understanding human motivation. The distinction between feelings and emotions are rarely addressed. In fact, writers most often interchange these terms to describe a single pathology. This feeds the confusion and incapacities meaningful dialog.

We at Authentic Systems use Immanuel Kant’s interpretation of “feeling.” That is, a feeling is the manifestation of stable innate faculties associated with abstract sustained cognition. Whereas, “emotions” are the physically based catalysts that interpret immediate external phenomenon to be relayed to our “feelings,” only to be reassessed back into emotions (excluding autonomic reactions). Emotions are therefore transitory.

For example, a parent is angry (emotional effect) at his or her child for running out into the street and not looking in both directions. What prompted this emotion of anger is the (causal feeling) love he or she has for their child. The feeling of love is the innate, stable capacity sustained over time whereas “anger’ is in the moment and regresses in intensity after a short period.

Furthermore, according to Carl Jung, objects draw and invoke emotions. This is a natural phenomenon, and is essential for human survival. When you encounter an unknown, you may have a range of sensationally stimulated emotions such as: curiosity, fear, or even ambivalence. When you give that unknown a name, it becomes a significant symbol of meaning. It is through this process that emotions become attached to every object in the universe. When some object is given a name, it not only becomes a â€œthingâ€, it also becomes something of â€œmeaning and soon we come to have a sustain “feeling” about the object.

On a daily basis, these emotions can be as subtle as: â€œlikeâ€, â€œdislikeâ€ or â€œambivalenceâ€. Even a state of ambivalence is nevertheless a state of meaning. Therefore, to put it simply: Nothing, is ever meaningless and has some emotional impact designed to stabilize an inner “feeling.”

Once this distinction is made a great deal is revealed, providing they stay separate in definition and application.

I do not agree with what you said. You cannot have a feeling without having a thought. Its been proven, that if you can control your thoughts you can control your feelings. Check out Dr. Arleene Taylor, a brain researcher for over 20 years. I like the way she explains it.

I am confused. One statement above ” You cannot have a feeling without having a thought.”

I don’t understand this statement. For example, if you are cold, you don’t need to have the thought that you are cold. Or if you are in pain, a thought is not required to feel pain.

I would propose the following: the mind(brain) consists of two minds: the aware mind that is always sensing and feeling the sensations, and the thinking mind which is sequencing thoughts. Sensations from the aware mind can be interpreted by the thinking mind and thoughts in the thinking mind can generate emotional states. Emotional states can be felt by the aware mind as well thus felt. For example, if someone thinks they have been wronged, this may lead to the emotion of anger which affects blood pressure, heart rate and is felt by the aware mind.

I would argue, all external physical actions are born in thougth, and all internal bio/physio actions creates the thoughts attaching itself to an emotion and feeling. This process will result in some physical response to be relieved of the presenting discomfort. Whatever stressors goes on in the outide, will allways manifest itself on the outside, because the body will always seek have homeostatisis.

When you were a baby and devoid of thought, what caused your physical actions?

“…and all internal bio/physio actions creates the thoughts attaching itself to an emotion and feeling. ”

Bio/physio states do not create thoughts given that some people are born with only 5% of a normal brain yet can reach 129 IQ.

“This process will result in some physical response to be relieved of the presenting discomfort. Whatever stressors goes on in the outside, will always manifest itself on the outside, because the body will always seek have homeostasis.”

The body seeks homeostasis due to the enfolding symbiotic internal relational systems. But the thinking mind will outwardly manifest internal processes only through conscious singular intent.

Jack,
I think that there is a confusion of terms.
Feelings are expressions of thought _by definition_.
When someone says “feeling cold”, this actually does not refer to a feeling but to a body sensation. It is our mastery of language as humans that allows us to have thoughts about it and name it, but it has nothing to do with feelings like in “feeling sad”.
Unfortunately the language is not very strict on terms and confusion is easy.

“I do not agree with what you said. You cannot have a feeling without having a thought. Its been proven, that if you can control your thoughts you can control your feelings. Check out Dr. Arleene Taylor, a brain researcher for over 20 years. I like the way she explains it.”

Emotions and Feelings are the forces that give energy to thought. It has been proven that you can control your emotions through your thoughts but not your deeper feelings.

Brain research is not designed to assess inner feelings of the mind and can only detect emotions from neural tracking. This is the problem with western psychology always needing physical evidence.

We may become very angry with someone but know that showing anger in a public setting in that moment, would not be appropriate. We would control our desire to express an emotional outburst but control this urge and say nothing. Nevertheless, the inner feelings that generated your anger is still with you, maybe in the form of contempt.

The meaning of feeling in our context can be known through the following questions, “How do you feel about abortions? “How do you feel about patriotism? How do you feel about Santa Claus? “How do you feel about having a career in business? “How do you feel about opera?

Notice that you first find your feelings then register these feelings through thought converted into language. This is done in the subconscious first then heard through speech. To prove this, we seldom need to rehearse our thoughts before we speak. We have feelings first that energize our cognitive capacities of thought that manifest as speech.

So, feelings precede thought but neuroscience can only register the dynamics thought that function as the effect of these feelings.

You should check out the European view of psychology and expand your understanding of the mind.

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS ARE EXPERIENCING OF SENSATIONS BY THE MIND. WHEN SENSATIONS COMING FROM OUTSIDE WORLD AND TOUCHING OUR SENSES ARE EXPERIENCED CAN BE CALLED AS FEELINGS. AND WHEN SENSATIONS COMING FROM WITHIN ARE EXPERIENCED ARE CALLED FEELINGS. IT CAN BE SAID THAT SENSATIONS FROM EITHER OUTSIDE WORLD OR FROM WITHIN ARE EXPERIENCED IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS BY THE MIND ARE FEELINGS. MIND CAN NOT INTERPRET DIRECT SENSATIONS EITHER FROM OUTSIDE OR FROM WITHIN BUT WHEN INTERPRETED IT IS TRANSLATED INTO FEELINGS WHICH MIND CAN UNDERSTAND.

I’m sorry to have to write this, but I’m afraid your article needs complete rewriting.
First, trying to get some sense out of what was written, I can see that the meanings of the two terms emotions and feelings have been inverted in most of the article.
Second, the definition of each is mostly incorrect. Emotions cannot be categorized by degree. They can be bland or intense, maybe this is what you meant. For example a door slamming can provoke a slight, momentaneous fear or total terror depending on the context (there are documented cases of death provoked by a too intense fear).
Feelings (e.g. feeling depressed) and body sensations (itching) are totally different things and have different definitions. Body sensations do not belong here.
Third, feelings/emotions are incorrectly described or compared. For example, hatred and disgust cannot be put on the same scale. Disgust is considered to be an emotion and is provoked by seeing or smelling something repulsive. Hatred is a feeling and does not get categorized in the same family as disgust. If you want to associate it to an emotion, then it would rather be put in the “anger” basket.
About your list of emotions: although there is a general consensus on what an emotion is, there is no finalized list of emotions. Many attempts have been done at this by researchers (who spent years working on it trying to put together empirical data). And in most of these attempts, love is usually excluded as it cannot be considered an emotion. Hate is not an emotion either but is a feeling. You missed anger and disgust which are emotions. Many consider surprise and jealousy to be emotions, which you both forget to mention.

Thanks for the lively discussion. What is thought? It is a reaction to either external stimuli or to memory.Reaction of what? Reaction of awareness.We see,hear,smell etc and we react.This reaction is thought.When we close our eyes the external stimuli are kept in abeyance and our memory(immediately prior or distant past) takes over; we react to the mental images.This reaction is also thought.Thought could be objective or subjective.Objective thoughts result in knowledge-useful or useless.Subjective thoughts occur due to our predilections. When subjective thoughts appear they result in some feeling or other.When the feeling is inconsequential they disappear in time.When the feeling is intense it results in emotion.

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Written by : Manisha Kumar.
and updated on October 16, 2009

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